Soon
by SierraSilver
Summary: "It's nice to see you again," he finally says. She can't speak. Every detail is exactly as she remembers it, down to the wedding ring on his finger. He had to have planned it that way, she thinks, to make her feel like no time has passed. (AU after 6x01 in which Lisbon kills Red John and there are serious ramifications/alternate introduction to The Mentalist 2.0.)
1. Part I

A/N: This story is the product of not enough sleep and listening to Julieta Venegas's album _Bueninvento _nonstop for two weeks. As a result, it's quite a bit darker than the other one. (Thank you to everyone who reviewed Beneath the Blue Stars, by the way. It was a nice surprise to see that feedback.) Warnings for quite a bit of violence and some swearing.

As stated in the summary, this is one of those AUs where Lisbon kills Red John (diverging right at the end of 6x01). I think that the reason I (and others) have been driven to write these is that we had really expected it to happen in the show. (I'm still a little surprised that it didn't, actually.) Be warned that this story is presented a bit strangely, and that there isn't as much of a focus on the unraveling of the CBI and the Blake Association because the point is more the emotional aftermath. This will also serve as an introduction to The Mentalist 2.0 (and please note that I messed with Fischer's timeline a little to have her show up here.)

The entire story has been written, but will be posted in three parts since it's a bit long. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the rest will appear over the next week or so. Standard disclaimer applies to all of this; I don't own The Mentalist.

* * *

"…Teresa can't come to the phone right now, can I take a message?"

It isn't a dream because in her dreams she's able to open her eyes and she's able to move and she doesn't ever smell blood in the air like this.

_Think. _

Driving away from Jane and her heart is pounding and maybe she should have punched him. Only love songs on the radio and she turns it back off. He won't stop calling and she's hitting ignore. The cell phone trackers Van Pelt set up. Partridge dying. Tyger, tyger. Nothing.

She's almost certain dreams can't happen when you're unconscious, so she's definitely awake now, but her hands and feet and even her eyelids still won't listen to her brain.

_Think. _

No machine sounds so it can't be the hospital. Stuffy air and the same faint scent of mold almost completely masked by the blood. She's still in that house. Partridge is dead though, so who was it talking?

There's something on her face. Not water. Someone's spreading it with their fingers across her skin and across her lips now and she knows who it is and doesn't know who it is at the same time and why isn't she moving? Why the _hell_ isn't she moving?

"I hope you aren't waking up, Teresa."

Eyes open. Crashing to the floor now and she thinks her arms and legs are working again but not fast enough. She's being pinned to the ground and there's a crack but she still has one hand free and she's clawing at his face.

McAllister. There's no time to be surprised. She drives her fingers into his right eye and he's screaming and she's going to be sick. The weight on her chest disappears and her lungs are getting oxygen and somehow she's getting to her feet now, somehow she's moving toward the door.

The gun. Did she drop it next to Partridge? He has to be in the next room and if she can get there she'll be okay, she'll be al—

The door tilts sideways and she's being dragged backwards across the carpet. The fabric of her jacket is ripping. Her head hits a wall and she's sliding toward the floor but she won't pass out again, she can't. She feels McAllister pull her back to her feet and rip her cross necklace away and now there's the tip of a curved blade in its place. He's looking at her with one good eye and a smile.

"What a shame that Patrick will have to find this…"

_No._

She throws herself forward so that their heads almost collide and the tip of the knife scratches her neck. He's off balance now. Her arms are still working and she hits him as hard as she can in the eye that's already a mess.

Another scream. She can't tell whether it's him or herself.

Something rips into her arm but she slams her other hand into his elbow and he loosens his grip on the knife long enough for her to grab it. More screaming. She isn't sure what she's doing but everything smells like blood and he's finally falling backwards enough for her to get away.

The door is unlocked. There's Partridge and her gun and a dying flashlight on the floor. McAllister is a second behind her but she gets her fingers around the handle and trigger and fires and fires until there aren't any bullets left and all she's hearing are clicks.

She expects him to have that awful smile on his face still, but his expression is blank. Dead.

* * *

She thinks it's been minutes and not seconds or hours when she hears the front door open. One of Red John's friends, maybe. Her legs are almost numb but she stumbles to her feet and away from the two bodies, towards the sound. The gun has no bullets but might fool someone, and the knife is still good.

In the front room there's a bit of light coming through the open door, but the figure walking toward her is still a shadow and she can't breathe.

"Stop." Her voice is cracking. "I have a gun. Stay away from me."

"Lisbon?"

Her hands stop working. The gun and knife both clatter to the floor and now Jane has an arm around her to keep her from collapsing. She can hear him pressing buttons on his phone, calling 911.

"He's dead," she says. "Jane, he's dead."

* * *

Two EMTs disappear into the house and one stays with her at the back of the ambulance, making her take off her jacket to inspect the cut on her arm. There's blood on the front of her shirt that she thinks is McAllister's from when she stabbed him. Jane sits next to her and she can hear him talking in that voice he uses to hypnotize people, trying to get her to calm down.

"My necklace," she hears herself saying. "The cross. It's in there, in the back room."

It's so trivial right now, but she can't think of anything else.

"I'll get it," he says.

While he's gone, the EMT wraps a bandage around her arm and tells her she'll need stitches before leaving to talk to another ambulance crew. She sits alone and tries to count how many cops are swarming about, going into the house with flashlights and coming out with frowns. She thinks she sees Bertram too, though he's far away and she doesn't trust her eyes right now.

Jane comes back a few minutes later and presses the broken necklace into her palm. He's carrying a washcloth and a bottle of water too, and she suddenly remembers.

"It's on my face, isn't it?" she asks. "That mark?"

He's silent as he pours a bit of water onto the cloth and sets the bottle down next to her.

"Jane, is it?"

"Yes," he answers. "Close your eyes."

She feels him put one hand beneath her chin to keep her from shaking as he removes the blood. Her heart starts pounding again. He's being gentle and she knows it's safe now, but not being able to see what's happening reminds her too much of before.

She interrupts him partway through. "Keep talking to me."

"Okay, but you can't say anything back." He touches the washcloth to the corner of her mouth. "The rest of the team is on their way, but I think you should go to the hospital."

She wants to protest, but he's taking the blood off of her lips and she can't speak.

"Partridge and McAllister are both dead," he continues. "They haven't said anything else, but I'm certain that McAllister…"

She looks at him again when he doesn't finish the sentence. His face is close enough to hers that she can almost see a blurred reflection of herself in his eyes. She tries to keep still as he sets the washcloth down and slowly pushes her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears.

"I thought you were dead," he finally says. "I got that phone call, and I thought…"

"I'm okay, Jane," she lies. "I'm fine."

He gives her a broken smile and then pulls away. "You need to go to the hospital. I'm going to find out what's taking so long."

* * *

She tells him he doesn't need to ride with her in the ambulance, but she's quietly relieved when he insists on doing just that. The lighting makes her eyes burn and the sound of the engine is abrasive. The blanket they gave her doesn't make her shiver any less.

"Call Van Pelt," she tells Jane, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. "We need to take down the tracking program."

He takes her hand so tightly in his that she's sure the cross necklace is going to leave an imprint on both their palms. "I will."

"This is really over?" she asks.

He leans towards her until his lips are a few inches from her ear and she can feel his breath across her face.

"I don't think so," he whispers. "But right now we need to pretend that we think it is."

* * *

She dreams in pieces—scenes from her memory playing one after the other like film clips, sometimes overlapping and blending beyond recognition. Beneath everything is the sound of a phone ringing over and over.

* * *

In the hospital she wakes up slowly again, gradually regaining movement and memory over the course of a few minutes. The room is empty and silent except for the machine noises, and through the window she can see a navy blue sky. She can't tell whether it's getting lighter or darker. She notes that her necklace is on a table nearby, but that there aren't any chairs pulled up to the bed.

She hits the call button and is told three things by the nurse who responds. First—she has two broken ribs in addition to the cut on her arm. Second—it's five-thirty in the morning and she's been asleep for more than a day. Third—no one has left any messages for her.

* * *

Around eight-thirty a doctor shows up and reiterates what the nurse told her before, though with more medical jargon and less of a smile. She realizes as he's leaving that there's a guard outside her door. Since she isn't handcuffed to the bed, she decides it's for protection.

They bring her a tray of hospital food. She eats everything without tasting it. At nine a woman she doesn't recognize makes it past the guard's inspection and comes into the room holding a clipboard and an FBI badge.

"You're Teresa Lisbon?" the woman asks.

She nods. "What's going on?"

"I'm Agent Fischer. I've been asked to take a statement from you regarding the deaths of Brett Partridge and Thomas McAllister."

"Why not SacPD? Or the CBI?"

The agent pulls up a chair and sits, taking out a pen from the top of the clipboard. "The CBI…no longer exists. The FBI has been called in to handle this case."

She stares at Fischer. "What the hell happened?"

"Your director, Gale Bertram, was arrested yesterday. But that's all I've been authorized to tell you. I just need to get your statement about Partridge and McAllister."

"What about my team?"

Fischer looks down at the clipboard. "I'm sorry. I can't discuss an ongoing investigation."

* * *

At eleven she's debating checking herself out of the hospital against medical advice when she hears the guard talking to someone at the door. Another FBI agent, maybe. She can't make out any of the words, but after a few minutes someone walks in.

"Boss?"

Relief laced with disappointment. "What's going on? Where is everybody?"

Van Pelt sits in the chair next to the bed. "We've been in the FBI's custody since yesterday afternoon. They still haven't released Wayne or Cho."

"What about…?" she swallows the question. "Why were you in custody?"

She's silent as Van Pelt tells her about something called the Blake Association and Jane's questionably legal plan to expose Bertram and an FBI team from Austin swooping in to bring everything to a grinding halt. She can't be surprised about any of it yet. She's still having trouble believing that she herself killed Red John two days ago.

"So the FBI's still got Cho and Rigsby?" she asks at the end.

Van Pelt nods. "But they said they'd release them soon. I came straight here when they let me go."

She can't keep herself from asking the question anymore. "Where's Jane?"

"You mean he hasn't shown up here? Or tried to call you?"

Her heart races. "No. What happened?"

"When we were in custody he was trying to tell the FBI who else he thought was involved in all of this, and when they wouldn't listen…"

"He _escaped?_"

"I'm not sure how he did it, but yes. Wayne and I thought maybe he'd gone to see you, but if he hasn't shown up here…" Van Pelt looks away. "Then no one knows where he is."

* * *

Her broken ribs heal and a doctor takes the stitches out of her arm and the scratch on her neck from the linoleum knife fades into nothing. While she's buying cardboard boxes and masking tape one morning, the cashier asks if she's moving to get away from all the violence in the city.

"Something like that," she tells him.

He nods and wishes her good luck.

* * *

"…and that's why I wasn't able to get any more printer paper."

She snaps back to attention to see the new intern in front of her desk, holding a small brown rabbit and an opened package of fireworks.

"Sorry, what?" she asks.

"I can't get more printer paper today. But the store should be back open tomorrow once they reshelf everything. Unless you want me to go to the one a few miles down the road, though I think they're closed on holidays."

"It's fine. We can make it a day without paper." She sighs. "Return the rabbit to Ms. Richards and…I guess keep the fireworks, if you want them."

"Got it. Thanks, Chief Lisbon." He gives her a nod and leaves the office.

She goes back to filling out paperwork for a nuisance complaint, but only makes it through three blanks before her cell phone rings. She reaches for it on the other of the desk, knocking over a small glass figurine in the process. The caller ID reads 'Amy Lansing'.

"Yeah?" she answers.

"You are still coming, right?"

"Yes, I am." She laughs. "But it isn't until seven, right?"

"Right. Just making sure you were aware. It looks bad when our chief of police doesn't show up at these things."

"I'm sure. As long as there aren't any more escaped rabbits or incidents with fireworks, I'll be there at seven."

There's a laugh on the other end of the line. "Oh, and I want to introduce you to someone."

She's about to respond when there's a click and the call ends.

* * *

She wasn't looking for new friends when she moved here months ago, or anything besides a job and relative anonymity, but she wasn't about to refuse when Mayor Lansing's wife offered to show her around town the day she arrived. She's still never told Amy anything about her life in Sacramento, save that she was a state agent who wanted to work somewhere more low-key after seeing a few hundred murder victims.

She's learning how to talk about the weather and the new ordinances from the homeowner's association and the right kind of flowers to plant in her front yard. She's learning how to drive through town without always checking for tails. She's remembering how to meet people without thinking of them as possible suspects.

Sometimes she thinks she'll stay for good.

* * *

On the way home she passes at least twenty houses with American flags hanging from their windows, plus a group of kids who hide sparklers as she goes by. Her next door neighbors are cooking on a grill outside and wave to her, but she only smiles back and doesn't go over to chat.

She's just set her keys on the kitchen table when there's a jingling noise somewhere nearby. It lasts half a second but it's wrong, out of place. She pulls out her gun and there it is again, somewhere above her.

She climbs the stairs with her jaw clenched and the gun held in front of her, and she can hear every single sound. The hiss of something being turned over on the grill outside. Shouts from kids playing. The hum of the air conditioning. Her own breathing, speeding up now. The jingling again.

Down the hallway. Everything pitch black except for a flashlight beam. That smell of mold and blood and the stale air of a deserted house and something isn't right, not at all—she should have backup. Where did this go wrong?

The sound of yelling. Turning on and off the radio. Hitting ignore every time there's a call. The anonymous tip and the cell phone trackers and if she opens this door in front of her now she'll find Partridge bleeding out.

Turning the handle. The jingling noise instead of the sound of pigeons and it's coming from the closet. Someone's in the closet and she can't hold the gun steady and there's blood on her face and on her lips and she can feel the linoleum knife cutting into her arm and _no, no, no._

Windchimes.

She hung them here in her bedroom yesterday evening. There's a breeze coming through the open window now, and they're jingling.

She sits on the floor with her back to the wall and her fingers still wrapped around the gun until she can think again.

* * *

She showers and dries her hair and puts the television on for background noise while she irons one of the few dresses she owns. The weather is too hot this evening to try to cover the scar on her arm, and by now it's faded to a silvery white anyway. No one in town ever asks about it. She thinks it's a combination of general politeness and a fear that, as the local police chief, she can make their lives unpleasant.

Before leaving, she takes down the windchimes and closes all the windows. She shouldn't have left them open anyway, she thinks, what with the air conditioner already running.

* * *

The park across from the town hall is already dotted with families on picnic blankets by the time she arrives, and she's stopped by three different people wanting to chat on her way into the building. Ms. Richards thanks her profusely for the safe return of the rabbit, but doesn't give any details on how it escaped in the first place.

The silent auction is already in progress when she makes it into the town hall, and she wanders through the crowd for a while without really looking at any of the items on the tables. _Proceeds from this event to benefit the maintenance of local public buildings, _the sign on the wall reads. It's written in orange marker and decorated with small handprints in blue paint. Maintenance is spelled wrong. She smiles.

She's considering getting something to eat from the tables of food at the front when she runs into Amy Lansing.

"Oh good, you're here. Make sure you say hello to my husband if you see him—I think he's somewhere around here…"

"Sure, I will," she says. "What were you saying before on the phone?"

Amy's eyes light up. "Right! I happened to run into a very nice man in town the other day. He's thinking of settling down here and I told him to stop by our Fourth of July celebration and get a sense of the atmosphere."

She makes a face. "You want me to talk to him about the crime rate?"

"Well, certainly, if you want to," Amy says. "But he told me he'd just come from California and I said you were the person to talk to about making that transition."

"I don't know if I'm really—"

"Oh, there he is now!" Amy waves at someone coming towards them and she turns to look.

_No._

And he's shaking her hand and giving her a fake smile and she can't do anything but stare.

"I'm Patrick Jane," he says. "Very nice to meet you."

"Teresa Lisbon." Her voice is almost inaudible.

"I told Teresa how you've been thinking of settling down here in Canon River," Amy is saying. "She's our chief of police, and she'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about safety and the like."

"That's very kind of her. I do have some questions about the crime rate here."

"Perfect," Amy replies. "Now, if you two will excuse me, I think I see my husband over there."

She nods mutely. Jane waits until Amy is out of earshot to speak again.

"I think we should talk, Lisbon."


	2. Part II

A/N: Thank you for reviews and follows and such. Here's part two of three. In order to write this, I had to rewatch all the clips of their fights from this season (which were mostly just Lisbon yelling at Jane). This was somewhat depressing.

Warnings for violence and language. Disclaimer applies.

* * *

At the top of an empty stairwell they hit a locked door, but the walls are thick enough that the silent auction crowd is muffled. She stands as far away from him as possible on the second floor landing, her fingernails digging into her palms. He's traded the fake smile for traces of a real one, but she has no idea what her own expression is.

"It's nice to see you again," he finally says.

She can't speak. Every detail is exactly as she remembers it, down to the wedding ring on his finger. He had to have planned it that way, she thinks, to make her feel like no time has passed.

He takes a step towards her and she punches him in the chest, knocking him back into the railing. She should be running now, down the stairs and out of the town hall and far, far away from him. Her feet won't move.

"Lisbon, I—"

"Shut up." Her voice is strangely steady. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but I don't want any part of it."

"This isn't a scheme, Lisbon. I just want—"

"Stop saying my name."

He falls silent.

"You ran away," she starts again. "You left me, and you let me think you were dead."

"I didn't want the FBI to keep looking for me."

"They called me when they found your abandoned car." She swallows. "They had me read your damn suicide note to see if I recognized the handwriting, did you know that?"

"No, I didn't." He looks away. "I'm sorry."

"I don't care." She's starting to choke on the words but she won't cry, not in front of him. "I don't care anymore, Jane. As far as I'm concerned, you were a son-of-a-bitch who jumped off a bridge a year ago and left everybody else to clean up the mess."

"I really am sorry." His voice is just as choked as hers.

"If you want to say sorry to someone, you can go apologize to the mayor's wife for lying to her. Then you can get the hell out of here. I don't ever want to see you again."

He steps forward again and reaches towards her. "Lisbon, please—"

She hits him in the face this time.

"Leave me _alone_." She can't keep herself from sobbing anymore. "Just leave me alone, Jane."

And she's down the staircase and out the door and finally the one to run away.

* * *

At home she locks and bolts the front door and turns the radio on loud enough to cover the sound of fireworks. She won't think of what's happened. She won't keep hearing his voice in her head or picturing the glint of the ring and the look on his face when he tried to apologize. He's dead, and he's been dead for over a year now, and so she couldn't have seen him today. It isn't possible.

That night she takes a sleeping pill and doesn't dream at all.

* * *

"Chief Lisbon?" The intern pushes open the door to her office. "We got more printer paper."

She glances up from _The Evolution of Federal Law. _"Great. You can leave it out by the printer."

He nods. "Oh, and I almost forgot." He slides an envelope out from under the package of paper. "There's a note I'm supposed to give you."

The page she's holding crinkles beneath her fingers. "There is?"

"Yep. Mrs. Lansing dropped it off this morning before you got here and told me to give it to you when you got here, but I'd forgotten until now."

She breathes again. "Thanks, I'll take it."

The letter is written in Amy's handwriting on stationary she recognizes, so she decides it's real.

_Hello,_

_I'm afraid I have to leave town for several days for a sudden family emergency, but I wanted to get this message to you as soon as possible and you weren't answering your cell phone. _

_At the event last night I was approached again later by the man I introduced you to before, Patrick Jane. He seemed to have had some kind of physical altercation with someone, and he apologized to me and said that he had lied to me before. He then claimed that he was a former colleague and close friend of yours who needed to speak with you about something extremely important._

_I'm still quite shocked about this, and I feel as though I inadvertently helped this man continue to stalk you. While I'm sure that as the chief of police you have resources at your disposal to handle this, please don't hesitate to talk to my husband if you do need any help. He has a few high-level connections who might be very useful to you._

_With some concern,_

_Amy Lansing_

She walks out of her office and into the front room, still holding the note.

"You're sure this is from Mrs. Lansing?" she asks the intern.

He nods. "She gave it to me herself this morning. Said something about having to head out to Spokane to help her sister. Why?"

She shakes her head. "Just making sure."

She's going to have to reassure Amy that Jane isn't a stalker and that he won't be a problem anymore. And she's going to have to find a way to stop wondering what 'extremely important' thing he was talking about.

He's already dead anyway, she thinks, so it isn't as though she'll ever find out.

* * *

Three days pass in relative quiet. She gives a talk about law enforcement careers for the local high school's summer program, having to answer fortunately only one question about 'that serial killer from California who used to draw those creepy faces in blood'. (She says only that the man responsible was killed in an incident with the police.) There's some minor vandalism at a mom-and-pop antiques store, but the owner later tells her it's a domestic dispute and that no charges will be filed.

She goes for a walk a little before dusk one evening, trying to study the cracks in the sidewalk and the chipping bricks of the houses she's passing by, so that she won't think about anything. There's an Airstream trailer on the side of Mulberry Street, but she doesn't feel like issuing a parking citation right now. She can always radio an officer to do it once she gets home.

A few blocks later she notices the sound of footsteps behind her—not hurried, but steady and in pace with her own. She doesn't want to seem paranoid by turning around to look, but she walks a little faster and starts to zigzag through the blocks.

The footsteps don't stop. Whoever it is, they're staying what sounds like twenty yards behind her and not getting any closer. Wouldn't the Blake Association have come to kill her by now, if they were going to?

Unless they were waiting until she felt safe, she thinks.

Once she's come full circle back to Mulberry Street without the footsteps stopping, she ducks out of sight behind the Airstream and waits for them to approach. She shouldn't have left her badge and gun at home. She doesn't have any weapons on her, not even mace.

The footsteps stop right before reaching her, and she comes out from behind the trailer with her fists raised.

"Please don't, Lisbon."

She doesn't lower her hands. "I could arrest you right now for harassment of a police officer."

"But you aren't going to."

She lets her arms fall to her sides so that he won't see them shaking. He's supposed to be dead. She accepted that he was dead and that she would never see him again, so he can't be here right now. Not with that weathered expression on his face and not with that fading purple bruise around his left eye. Not at all.

"I told you to leave me alone, Jane." Her voice is drained and missing the edge that she wanted it to have.

"You did. And then you voluntarily came to my home."

She turns her head sharply towards the Airstream. "This is yours?"

"Yes. Do you think we can have a conversation without you resorting to physical violence?"

She realizes that her hands are in fists again. "Look, I don't care about whatever 'extremely important' thing you have to tell me."

"Then we won't talk about that. We'll talk about what you want to talk about."

"I don't _want _to talk to you about anything," she snaps. "I wanted you to leave me alone."

He sighs. "Five minutes, Lisbon. Could you just talk to me for five minutes?"

She should be running, or punching him again, or doing anything other than agreeing.

"Fine. Five minutes."

* * *

Jane immediately starts making tea once they're inside, even though she won't be staying long. She stands in the middle of the open space, shifting a little from one foot to the other, silently refusing to sit on the couch.

"How are you?" he asks, glancing up at her from the counter where he's making tea.

"Why?"

He puts down the kettle and turns to face her. "You promised you'd talk to me. I know something's wrong."

She stares at him. "You were supposed to be _dead_, Jane. You were supposed to be dead and now you're back and trying to screw up my life again. That's what's wrong."

"Did you want me to be dead?" His voice is steady.

"No, I…"

"Are you angry with me because I'm alive or because you thought I was dead?"

She folds her arms so that she won't punch him again. "I'm angry because you _left _me. You couldn't deal with the fact that your _sidekick _had killed Red John instead of you, so you just—"

"You know I don't think of you like that."

"You're right. You don't think of me at all." She takes a breath. "I was someone for you to use until you got what you wanted. And when it didn't work out, you just took off without saying _anything _to me. Anything at all."

"I know. I'm sorry." He looks away. "But you know it isn't true that I don't think about you. I'm here now because of you, Lisbon. I came back for _you._"

"But you couldn't stay for me?" She hates the weakness in her voice but she can't get rid of it.

"I didn't know you needed me. I—"

"Don't give me that crap about not knowing. You _knew_ I needed you and you _knew_ I loved you, and you just…"

Dammit, why did she say that?

He's staring at her now. "You loved me?"

"That's not the _point._" She won't cry this time, she won't. "You ran away from me, and you faked your own death so that I wouldn't go after you. Do you realize how twisted that is?"

"I just needed time, Lisbon."

"I knew that. You could have just told me you needed time instead of…" She can't finish the thought. Her voice sounds distant and the room is getting darker, like there's a dimmer switch.

Not this. Not in front of him. She has to keep talking.

"This is what he wanted to happen, Jane. He did this on purpose."

"I've thought about that." His voice sounds like it's on the other end of a telephone line, full of static and white noise.

Only love songs on the radio.

No. It can't happen right now. She can't let this happen right now. She has to keep talking.

"He let me kill him so that you wouldn't be able to, and now we're both…"

Turning off the music. The anonymous tip. The cell phone trackers and the abandoned house. The smell of blood and Partridge dying and tyger, tyger and darkness. She can't see anything but someone's coming toward her, she can hear their footsteps.

"Lisbon?"

Their hand on her shoulder and it has to be McAllister and she can't breathe anymore. Blood on her face, spread over her eyelids and across her lips. Being crushed and her ribs snapping and she can't get away. He's dragging her across the carpet and her jacket is tearing and he's ripping away the cross and the linoleum knife is against her neck and—

That smile. _"What a shame that Patrick will have to find this."_

* * *

"You're okay. You're safe now."

She's sitting on the couch, still in the Airstream. Jane is next to her with a hand on her shoulder, and she thinks he's trying to catch her gaze. She won't look back at him. He wasn't supposed to know. She wasn't supposed to let him find out.

"How long has this been happening, Teresa?"

Her first name. She swallows and tries to make her voice even. "Nothing's happening. I'm fine."

"You started screaming for me to stay away from you, that you had a gun." He leans into her field of vision, forcing her to look back at him. "I've been trying to help you calm down for the last five minutes."

She pushes his hand off of her shoulder. "I'm fine now."

"I don't think you are," he says. "You look like you haven't been eating or sleeping at all, really."

"Don't do this, Jane. Please don't do this."

"How long has this been happening?"

She can't stop herself anymore. "Since a few weeks after that night, okay? But I'm fine, so you can just leave me alone."

"It's been getting worse since it started, though."

"No, it's fine. I'm fine." She won't cry. "Please stop."

"Let me help you, Teresa."

"No. You're not hypnotizing me." She stands up from the couch abruptly and has to hide a wave of dizziness. "I'm going home."

He gets up. "I'll drive you."

"No."

"Then I'll walk with you."

"Leave me alone, Jane." The words catch in her throat. "Please."

"Can we talk again in a few days?" he asks. "Just for a little while."

Her hand is on the door handle and she doesn't look at him. "It was the worst thing you've ever done to me."

"I know. But can we just talk?"

She glances back and accidently sees the expression on his face.

"Fine. But I'll call you, okay? Don't come looking for me."

He nods. "Thank you, Teresa."

* * *

There's a break-in the next morning at a house on the edge of town, so she and a subordinate are out of the office for an hour to talk to the man and his ten-year-old son who live there. Trying to get a statement from the father, she can almost hear Jane asking unprovoked personal questions, almost see him picking up random items from the bookshelves and coffee table and turning them over and over in his hands.

Back at the station, she's going through the criminal history of the homeowner's ex-wife when she notices a piece of paper in the corner of her desk. She looks it over a couple times before getting up and heading out to the front room.

"I found this on my desk." She holds up the note.

The intern squints at it. "Oh, that. Someone came in and left it on the table here while I was in the break room. I thought you'd know what to do with it."

She nods. "Thanks."

At her desk again, she studies the handwriting until she can convince herself that she really does recognize it. The note's only words are _For Chief Lisbon, _and the rest is a ten-digit telephone number.

She's beginning to admit it to herself—he really is alive.

* * *

Four days later she meets the recently returned Amy Lansing in the early evening to explain the situation. She offers as few details as possible, saying only that Jane is a former colleague, not a stalker, and not dangerous. She doesn't say anything about the 'physical altercation,' and Amy doesn't ask.

She's struck with a sense of jamais vu on her way home, as though she hasn't spent most of the last year in this town, in this job, in this house. Her eyes drift past her neighbor's leftover Fourth of July decorations and the flowers in her front yard without lingering. She unlocks the front door and half-expects to be walking into her old apartment.

She drops her keys on the kitchen table and immediately picks up the _For Chief Lisbon _note from the other day. She messes up twice trying to type in the number. It rings four times.

"You called," he answers, voice warm.

"I said I would."

"Can we talk in person?"

She pauses a moment and glances into the living room, her eyes trailing across the half-empty bookshelves and the one framed photograph of her brothers. "Do you know where my house is?"

He laughs. "I'll be there soon."


	3. Part III

A/N: To anyone who wonders, the Airstream isn't from the FBI in this reality, but just a way for Jane to travel relatively unnoticed.

Also, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's reviewed/followed/favorited my two stories. I'm about to go away and start college (yikes), so I'm not sure if I'll have time to write more fanfictions, but we'll see (I do have more ideas). This has really helped me with third-person narration though, and your support has given me a bit more confidence in my writing, so thanks.

Standard disclaimer applies.

* * *

Everything is relatively clean already, so she doesn't do much besides sit at the kitchen table to wait. The living room clock ticks. Her hands subconsciously play old clarinet fingerings on the tabletop—maybe the notes to "All of Me," though she isn't sure. It occurs to her that she won't have any tea to offer Jane when he shows up. She hasn't bought any since she read his fake suicide note.

She jumps to her feet and almost tips over her chair when there's a knock at the door. She finds him examining the front yard's flowers by the light on the porch.

"Impatiens?" he asks.

She glances at them. "I think so. It's just what they had at the store."

He nods and follows her back inside, where she doesn't offer to give him a tour. She only leads him into the kitchen and stands leaning against the stove, regarding him with what she hopes is a relatively blank expression. He looks around for a few moments before taking a place next to the kitchen counter, facing her without being too close. She's relieved to be having a conversation somewhere other than inside that claustrophobic Airstream.

"Thank you for this, Lisbon."

Back to her last name, though she won't analyze that.

"I'm still mad," she tells him.

"But clearly not as much as before, or you wouldn't have agreed to see me." He gives her a small smile, and she notices the bruise around his eye has faded completely.

"Why did you come here, Jane?" she asks after a short pause. "I know it isn't to move to Canon River, and it can't be just to talk to me."

"You're right." He quits smiling. "I'm here because I want you to come with me to Austin."

She shudders as though she's just laid her hand on a heated stove coil. "_Texas?_"

"Texas," he affirms. "To work for the FBI with me."

"This is some kind of joke, right?" She can't even imagine what face she's making right now.

"Before I came here, I stopped by the FBI headquarters in Austin to let them know I was alive," he tells her. "There was a bit of talk about obstruction of justice charges, but I convinced them that prosecuting me wouldn't be in their best interest."

"And then they offered you a _job?_"

"As a consultant, yes. I told them that I'd identified seven members of the Blake Association still unexposed, and—"

"Have you?" she interrupts. "Identified them, I mean?"

He nods. "They became much easier to find after I'd died."

She exhales sharply. "I _knew _it was a scheme."

Jane looks away, and she realizes his fake suicide was probably a scheme the way his six-month breakdown in Vegas was a scheme—not intentionally. She grits her teeth for a moment, noticing the tension in her limbs.

"So you told them about the other members, and then…?" she finally prompts.

"And then they told me that whoever those seven people were, I'd need legal evidence to prove it," he continues. "They said that if I helped their team with their trickier cases, they'd give me what I need to catch the rest of the Association."

"And you actually agreed?"

He goes back to grinning at her. "No. I told them I'd only work with you."

"_What?_"

"To which they replied that they'd already tried to hire you three months ago, but you had said no."

A phone call mid-afternoon to the landline in her office. Out-of-state area code. Agent Abbott telling her in no uncertain terms that she's wasting her talents.

She told him she was done with all of it, and not to call again.

Jane continues, "So I told them not to bother you, to give me a few weeks and I'd have you back in Austin with me to get started."

"_What?_" she says again.

"I didn't account for you being so upset, though." His smile disappears. "Or for your hallucinations."

Her jaw clenches for a moment. "They're not hallucinations, Jane. I'm not crazy."

"Of course not. But I can help to make them stop, if you would let—"

"No," she snaps. "I already said no."

"You're still doing your job quite exceptionally, of course, but this is affecting your health—"

"You'd really work with the FBI?" she interrupts, changing the subject. "After everything? Even though Red John is already dead?"

"The FBI is a means to an end."

"Catching the rest of the Blake Association?"

"That," he says. "And you."

"Me?" She swallows.

"I'd like to work with you again," he explains. "I obviously can't do that here, or at the CBI anymore, so the FBI is a reasonable option."

"Why do you want to work with me?" she asks, tone accusatory.

"I want you to trust me again." He pauses and seems to study her expression. "I want you to let me help you."

"So you just want to get in my head."

Another grin. "You make that sound so uncouth, Lisbon."

She feels her face reddening. "And who exactly would I be working with in Austin? Besides you, I mean."

"Agent Abbott would be in charge, so to speak," he tells her. "And Cho would be on the team."

"Cho? How?"

"Seems he went through training several months ago and was assigned to Austin," Jane tells her. "He said he'd fallen out of touch with you."

"Since I moved, yeah," she says. "Who else?"

"Kim Fischer would be the senior agent."

"Really?"

Jane nods. "You like her, I see."

"She was the one who called me when they…"

All the furniture cleared out of the CBI save a few tables and chairs. Fischer telling her to sit down, handing her a plastic evidence bag with that piece of paper inside it.

She remembers pain in the agent's expression—a distant, veiled kind of pain, maybe several years old. But that night she never had time to think very much about it, let alone ask.

"If you have questions for them, call this number tomorrow morning." Jane is at the kitchen table when she looks up, scribbling something on the back of an envelope. "It shouldn't be too difficult to find you a place to live in Austin, and—"

"I didn't agree to any of this, Jane."

He sets down the envelope and pen and walks toward her, coming to a halt a bit closer this time and looking into her eyes. "What's stopping you?"

"You are," she tells him. "You just assume I want to work with you again, even though you've done nothing but make my life hell since the day you showed up at the CBI."

He frowns. "A bit harsh."

She just stares at him.

"I am…" he trails off for a moment, then shakes his head slightly. "I am terribly sorry about…running away from you, Lisbon."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm hoping that you will, eventually." He offers a weak smile. "In the meantime, I'm hoping you'll join the FBI with me. At least until we can find the rest of the Blake Association."

She opens her mouth to tell him absolutely not, and instead says, "I need a few days to think about it."

"Of course." A real grin now.

"No promises, Jane."

"I understand." He regards her for several seconds in silence, as though he's trying to read her mind or memorize her face. When he speaks again, it's much quieter. "Can I hug you?"

"What?" She tenses up again. "Why?"

"Because I haven't seen you in a year, and I've missed you."

"Whose fault is that?" she snaps.

He has that strange expression on his face again, the one she's only seen on him since he returned, and he doesn't speak.

"Fine," she finally tells him. "No funny business."

He laughs for a moment at the familiar phrase, and then she's in his arms and remembering the last time they were this close—in her office at the CBI, seconds before the confession punctuated by gunfire. Now she's hugging him back much more tightly than she expected to be, and she can feel his fingers sliding gently through her hair.

"I haven't forgiven you yet," she whispers.

"I know." His lips seem about to brush against her ear.

She tries to slow down her heartbeat so he won't feel it, but only succeeds in making it faster. He's drawing her somehow even closer now, almost crushing her against him with the same sort of frantic affection she remembers from the last time. She shuts her eyes and turns her head until her cheek is pressed against him, the fabric of his suit maybe leaving impressions in her skin.

She's falling under that damn spell again, she's sure of it.

"I missed you too," she hears herself saying.

"I thought so," he replies, laughing again.

She thinks about pulling away and glaring at him for that, but can't make herself let go.

* * *

The next morning she brings the envelope with the FBI phone number on it to work, setting it on the edge of her desk and periodically glancing at it throughout the morning. Not a single call comes in requiring her attention. She finishes all the paperwork there is to do and makes it through another three chapters of _The Evolution of Federal Law_ before giving in and dialing the number.

Agent Abbott confirms everything Jane told her about the job offer, while adding a few not-so-subtle comments about the relative unimportance of her work in Canon River. She repeatedly reminds him that she hasn't made up her mind yet, that she's only calling to make sure the offer is real and that she'd be working with Cho and Fischer.

After hanging up, she stands and starts rearranging everything in the room. There's no particular sense of purpose behind the reorganization, but if she's sorting files or adjusting frames on the wall or moving her desk five inches to the right, she won't be thinking about Texas or the FBI. After thirty minutes she runs out of busywork and picks up her police radio.

"This is Chief Lisbon. Who's running traffic and parking violations in town today?" she says into the speaker.

"That's me, Officer Brown," the radio crackles back.

"If you see an Airstream trailer parked anywhere it shouldn't be, give the driver a citation."

"Yes, ma'am."

She smiles a little bit and heads to the break room to make more coffee.

* * *

At her house that evening she wanders through the rooms for a while, counting the possessions she's obtained since coming to Washington. Aside from more cold weather clothing and home repair items, there isn't much. She thinks the essentials could all still fit into a few boxes, and she never got around to buying very much more in the way of furniture.

She finds herself calling the realtor she bought the house from to see how difficult it would be to sell. She's told the market in the area is doing surprisingly well, and that it might take only a few weeks to find the right buyer and arrange a deal, if she's interested.

It's too easy. She knows Jane can't have had anything to do with the Canon River real estate market, but it still feels like everything is just another piece of the plan. He's been getting her to agree to little things ever since he got here—just a conversation every few days, just a hug. She hates herself for falling for it, for telling him she'd loved him once, for saying she'd think about moving halfway across the country for him. All of it is another con. She just can't figure out the endgame.

She won't think about that strange look he keeps giving her, or how tightly he was holding her yesterday, or—

She shudders at a sudden noise, spinning around in place before realizing it's her phone ringing. It isn't who she was expecting it to be, thank god.

"Hey, Van Pelt," she answers. "What's going on?"

It almost sounds like a greeting she'd give while they were on a case at the CBI. She thinks she might never get used to this first name thing, and it doesn't help that Van Pelt is still calling her 'boss'.

"Nothing, really. Wayne and I just wanted to see how you were."

"He's back," she blurts out, though it wasn't the question. "Jane, I mean. Jane is back."

There's a pause in which she hears Van Pelt talking to someone (Rigsby, she assumes) in the background, though the words are impossible to make out. She walks to the kitchen and starts rearranging the items in the pantry with her free hand, barely paying attention to the order she's putting them in.

"What do you mean?" Van Pelt finally asks.

She realizes she must sound like she's suffering a psychotic break. "He just showed up here about a week ago. The suicide was fake. He's…going to work for the FBI."

"You're sure?"

She's not certain which part Van Pelt means, so she just says, "He wants me to join too. The job is in Austin."

"Are you sure that it's a good idea? I mean…"

"I don't know. I haven't decided yet."

She shouldn't have brought this up. It all sounds ludicrous when she has to explain it to someone else, even someone who knows Jane.

"I want to speak with him."

She hesitates a moment, then says, "I can give you his cell number."

"Okay, thank you."

She finds the _For Chief Lisbon _note on the kitchen table and reads the number into the phone. There's another long pause afterwards, and she checks to make sure the call hasn't ended.

Van Pelt breaks the silence. "Do you want my opinion, boss?"

She sighs. "I think I can guess."

"He's still a con artist. None of us should ever have trusted him."

* * *

She dreams that she's in Sacramento still, with broken ribs and a bandage on her arm and a faint scratch on her neck. It's five in the evening and she finds herself driving now, past the places that at one time were crime scenes, past the headquarters of the now defunct CBI, past the SacPD building and out of the city. When she finally parks the car and looks up, she's greeted by a mansion.

It's where Jane used to live.

Somehow the front door is unlocked, somehow she's walking up the stairs and down the hallway toward that room where she knows Red John's mark is still on the wall. She hasn't been here since Jane lost his memory.

She turns the handle and pushes the door open and—god, that smell. She knows it from all those murder scenes, from that abandoned house only days ago, from the afternoon she came home from school to find she'd become an orphan.

She won't look at his body. She can't see him like this.

* * *

The next evening she heads back into town after sunset, intending to pick up more milk from the convenience mart but instead wandering through the lit streets. A few dog-walkers pass her by, though no one she knows well enough to feel obligated to chat with. The Vietnamese restaurant on the corner of Maple and Market streets is just closing down for the night, a waitress wiping off tables and a last couple leaving for their separate cars.

What if she stays?

She has to agree with Van Pelt—it would make sense not to leave. She has a house and a job here, a sort-of friend here, the semblance of a life here. She's been able to hide her ghosts from everyone else in town, for the most part. And joining the FBI is a major commitment, even if she wouldn't be directly responsible for Jane. If she's working there, she'll have to do something about the 'hallucinations' (flashbacks, really), and she doesn't like her options.

If she stays, Jane won't join the FBI—though she doesn't think he'll remain here, either. She imagines he'll disappear into the ether again, collecting more information on the remnants of the Blake Association and probably getting himself arrested in the process. Would she ever see him again? Could she go back to thinking of him as being dead? Does she want—

Red John's mark.

There, next to her, painted on the wall of this alley. She didn't kill him; he must have survived and the EMTs took him somewhere to hide out and now he's back. She reaches for her gun but it isn't there, she doesn't have any weapons, she—

It's just a smiley face. Not Red John's mark, just a normal smiley face in black spray paint on the bricks, the work of a teenage vandal.

_Dammit, who the hell paints a smiley face as graffiti?_ She wonders what happened to the days of swear words and gang symbols and lovers' initials. Though Canon River is the sort of town to have cheerful, upbeat vandalism, she thinks—if any at all.

And she's walking again, faster than before—out of the alley and past the last of the commercial buildings and into the residential neighborhood, scanning the streets like she's on patrol. She finds what she's looking for in only five minutes, almost hidden in the shadows between streetlamps.

She counts eight seconds for him to answer the door.

"Lisbon." He smiles softly. "Come to give me another parking citation?"

She knows she's supposed to say something snappy in response, but she can't because she's stepped through the doorway and is hugging him now. She's broken the rule she made herself years ago—never initiate contact with Jane—but she can't bring herself to care or to stop. Maybe it's seeing him alive again after that dream, or maybe it's something else.

He returns the embrace immediately, not even making a silly comment like she expected him to do. Not saying anything at all.

It takes entirely too long before she's ready to let go of him, and her heartbeat feels deafening and erratic. Jane stays close, keeping his hands on her shoulders and seeming to search for something in her expression. She knows he's reading her, trying to figure out why she's here, and she doesn't pull away.

"You've decided," he begins after several seconds. "…To come with me to Austin."

She just nods. She can't figure out when or how she decided, but she knows he's right.

After a few moments of silence he leads her to the couch, moving aside a paperback to make room for her. She sits beside him and tries to gather up all her thoughts into some semblance of order, something she can express in words.

"I got a call from Grace last night," he tells her. "She was…unhappy with me."

"You didn't just hurt me, Jane. You hurt them too."

"I know." His gaze falls to the floor. "I just think that if I'd tried to stay, I'd have ended up hurting you and hurting them even more."

"You still could've found a way to leave for a while without making everyone think you'd killed yourself."

"Maybe. But you'd have come looking for me."

"Yeah, I would have," she says. "But that isn't an excuse. And neither is running from the FBI or trying to catch the Blake Association. Half the time you treat me…like I'm not even a person. Like I don't matter to you at all, unless you need me to keep you out of jail."

"I know that. And I'm sorry." He looks up at her again. "But you have to know by now how important you are to me."

"No. I _don't_ know that." She thinks she might punch him again. "How the hell am I supposed to figure that out when you never tell me anything?"

"Then I'm telling you now, Lisbon." He pauses as though he's collecting his thoughts. "Not seeing you at all this last year has been…miserable, to say the least. I didn't come back because I needed help from the FBI. I came back because I needed to see you again. Because I need you."

"Because _you_ need me or because you actually care about whether or not _I'm _okay?"

"Teresa, please." His voice shakes on her first name and she can see something in his eyes, but he can't possibly be that close to crying because she knows he would never cry over her. She's sure of it.

"Which is it, Jane?"

"You were the only thing keeping me alive sometimes, and now I'm back here and finding out that he's inside your head and that it's destroying you, and I just…" He draws a breath. "I need to fix this. This is my fault and I need you to be alright again."

"So you can keep using me?" She knows she's making this impossible, but she won't stop.

"So that you can be happy, Teresa. I know you weren't happy before you met me and I know you haven't been happy these past several years, but maybe you would've been if I hadn't…" he trails off. "You deserve to be happy, and you can't be happy if all this is still haunting you, believe me."

"So do you actually care about me?"

"Yes. Of course I care about you. Of course I do." He takes one of her hands in his, and she's too startled to pull away. "I know…how much pain you've had to deal with during your life, and I know how much I've hurt you, and I'm sorry. I—"

"This isn't like the other times, Jane. You can't just say you're sorry and expect everything to go back to what it was. I haven't forgiven you."

But she doesn't make him let go of her hand.

"You'll come with me to Austin, though?"

"Because I want the rest of the Blake Association caught," she tells him. "And if I do this, it has to be different. I have to know I can count on you."

"Okay. Of course."

"No running away. No more schemes where you might get yourself killed or arrested—not without telling me first."

"I promise."

She makes a face. "That's all you have to say? You 'promise'?"

"What do you want me to say?" His voice is quiet and tentative and he holds her hand a little tighter. "The last thing I want to do is lose you again."

She shivers. "Alright."

"But I need you to do something too, Teresa."

"Besides leaving my job and moving halfway across the country?" she snaps.

"Besides that," he tells her. "You need to talk to someone. You said that you didn't want me trying to help you, so you need to talk to someone else. You have to be healthy enough, or none of this will work."

"But I…" She knows he's right.

"I'm sure you can find a therapist who won't try to frame you for murder." He gives her a slight smile.

She scowls. "Fine."

"Thank you."

She thinks he might say something else, but instead they both sink into a silence marred only by the sound of passing cars. He doesn't let go of her hand, and she decides that maybe she doesn't mind. It isn't like they haven't held hands before, after all. Even if both of those times were under very different circumstances than these. Even if right now she thinks she should probably still be too angry to be letting this happen.

A year ago she forbid herself from ever remembering this, but now—

That night, in the ambulance, right after he'd told her he didn't think it was over yet. Her teeth chattering and their hands clasped together around the broken cross necklace. He told her she needed to rest and she said she couldn't. The steady murmur of his voice again—the voice he'd used to hypnotize her once, the voice he'd used to keep her calm when she'd had a bomb strapped to her chest and was sure she was about to die.

Shutting her eyes and the fading of the engine noise, the fading of the siren. Words she couldn't follow but it didn't matter because she was falling asleep, somehow falling asleep.

She catches his gaze now and realizes she wants to hug him again, but there's no way in hell she's doing that more than once in a conversation.

"I'm glad you're not dead," she tells him instead, her voice softer than she intended.

She wants him to say 'I thought so' or something equally annoying, but he just smiles at her. She pulls her hand away from his. She can't fall for this again, even if he really does seem sincere this time.

"I'm not moving to Austin to spend time with you," she says.

"I know. You said you just wanted to catch the rest of the Blake Association."

"Right. And the FBI is a good opportunity."

"Which you turned down three months ago," he laughs.

She glares at him. "I've had more time to think about it now."

"Mmhm." He grins at her. "Ah, and don't forget the most important reason to leave."

"What's that?" she asks, eyes still narrowed.

"It's just so boring here in small-town Washington."

"It _isn't_ boring. Last week someone got a rabbit set loose in a store downtown and—" she stops abruptly, realizing. "That was _you,_ wasn't it?"

Still grinning. "Why would I have done something like that, Lisbon?"

"You wanted to remind me of that one case back at the CBI so I would be thinking of you, and then you had Amy 'introduce' you to me so it would feel like we could start over again—"

"That wasn't a part of the plan, actually," he tells her. "I was only going to find you to ask if we could talk, but your friend Amy was surprisingly set on introducing us."

"I still can't believe you actually apologized to her without me having to drag you back down there and force you to do it."

"I wanted to apologize to her. I could tell it was important to you."

"Okay." She needs to stay mad, or at least detached, and he's making it impossible. "Okay, that's a start."

He keeps holding her gaze. "And I've thought a lot about what you said before, that this was Red John's plan, and I think you're right. He's tried to…win, per se, through dying."

"He _did _win." Her voice is hollow.

"Maybe," Jane says. "For months I thought that he had, but now I don't think so anymore. I'm only sorry that it's taken me so long, that I wasn't there for you, and that we both had to do this alone. I thought that I was…protecting you in some way from me, from who I was in those months, and I didn't realize how much I was hurting you by not being there."

"But you should have," she says, though it's quiet and matter-of-fact instead of angry.

"You're right. I should have. And I hope you'll believe me when I say that I'm sorry I didn't." He takes a breath but doesn't look away for even a second. "I hope you'll realize how much I care about you, how important you are to me, because I would do anything to prove it to you and to have things be different this time."

She needs to get out of here now, before she says or does something crazy (or crazier than what she's already said and done). "It's getting late. I should probably go home."

He waits a moment, then nods. "I can drive you."

"No, it's fine. I want to walk." She wants to fly back through the streets as fast as she can until her head is clear and her thoughts make sense.

But when he follows her to the door, she turns to face him again.

"We should…talk more about this," she says. "Later, I mean. When we're in Austin."

"We should." His expression shifts to something she doesn't entirely recognize. "And I think we should talk about the other thing you said before, also."

She reddens and takes a step backward. "That wasn't…I didn't mean to…I—"

"I just think we should talk about it, Teresa," he says. "Not right now, but maybe soon?"

If she doesn't want him to run away anymore, she realizes, then she can't either.

"Okay. Soon."


End file.
